UNITEDRANT

Kagawa’s new role offers attacking balance and a defensive headache

Shinji Kagawa hadn’t been given a real opportunity by David Moyes, with no apparent rationale, until Manchester United’s victory over Real Sociedad last week. However, the European game and subsequent encounter with Stoke City, have demonstrated not only the Japanese player’s abilities, but also Moyes’ tactical nous in adapting to changing circumstances this season.

The seemingly innocent observation that the ball moves faster than the player has led to the proliferation of direct football over the years, especially in Britain. While never matching the extremes of long-ball sides of the past, Moyes’ United side had initially focused on a rigid structure and a direct approach.

The 4-1 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad led to the method being abandoned, with changes in both attack and defence in recent weeks.

Perhaps forced by injuries to Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, Jonny Evans and Phil Jones have been playing at the back in recent matches. The pair’s youth and speed have allowed the Reds to push forward and squeeze the field of play. With Michael Carrick shielding United’s defence, the Geordie’s partner can motor forward at last. This tactic allows a center back, usually Evans, to carry the ball forward and allow more advanced players to take up positions higher up the field.

Kagawa’s return to the side, albeit nominally on the left, has coincided with this change in the new United manager’s strategy. The current plan, as witnessed against Sociedad and Stoke, offers greater fluidity up-front, although the relative lack of structure and shape can leave the Reds extremely vulnerable at the back. Possession is paramount if United is to avoid coming under increasing defensive pressure.

One of Kagawa’s greatest strengths is his ability to take balls under pressure and release it quickly to another teammate. Crucially, the former Borussia Dortmund playmaker is constantly on the move and offers an easy passing option for whatever Red is in possession, at the same time relieving opposition pressure.

In terms of passing, only Carrick bettered Kagawa in the match against Stoke City; the 66.3 per cent possession United enjoyed at Old Trafford is the direct consequence of Kagawa’s tireless running and search for space.

The Stoke game saw the Japanese occasionally dropping extremely deep to take the ball from a defender under duress. Evans passed to Kagawa just as much as he did to Carrick – nine passes to each.

While, Kagawa created little in terms of chances, his off the ball movement enabled others to come into the game and, crucially, allowed United to attack through the middle, and not rely solely on predictable balls delivered from out wide. Meanwhile, Robin van Persie enjoyed his best game since the season opener against Swansea City, with Kagawa the key element linking the Dutchman with the rest of the team.

Patrice Evra faced little opposition yet constantly allowed Stoke forwards to slip in unmarked from his flank. For example, the visitor’s opening goal was conceded with Evans outmanned two-to-one and the Frenchman missing an opposition playing running into the box.

One solution to this long-standing problem could be to deployed a disciplined player such as Danny Welbeck on the left, and choose between Kagawa and Wayne Rooney at number ten. However, this is not only unlikely for political reasons, but the former Everton player’s natural tendency to move towards the left greatly compliments the Japanese midfielder’s movements towards the middle. Kagawa passed to Rooney 16 times during the fixture against Stoke, with the former allowing the Englishman to make a number of dangerous late runs into the box.

At this point Kagawa might just be ecstatic being on the pitch after missing out for much of the campaign to date. Yet, the role Moyes is imposing on the Japanese is significantly different from that the former Dortmund player is used to. Instead of having an attacking approach revolving around him as in Germany, Kagawa is now helping his teammates drive the game forward.

The fact that Nani was taken off for Adnan Januzaj and Tom Cleverley substituted for Javier Hernandez with United chasing a goal, however, does indicate that Moyes finally considers Kagawa an important piece of the attacking puzzle.

Now Moyes must find a solution to some very obvious defensive problems.

53 comments

Kagawa is d player utd is searching 4 in d market. Who is cabella to kagawa or cesc or hernanes. Kagawa is a better player 2 dese guyz. Young should be treated d way adebayo is being treated at spurs. Fellaini shld nevabe paired with carrick coz dey play d same way and carrick being a beta player. Dis formation shld suite utd
De gea,rafael,evans,vidic,evra,carrick,kagawa,januzaj,zaha rooney,van persie.
Subs:lindergaard,jones,fellaini,nani valencia chicharito

Good article.
Big fan of Kagawa’s, he is a subtle and very intelligent player. I think the answer in solving the defence problems caused in kagawa’s inclusion into the team is about moyes being more flexible with formation.
I think that even though not a traditional united formation, we could try wing backs or a more flexible/ fluid 442 with the following:
De Gea
Smalling /Jones. Vidic. Evans.
Rafael / Valencia. Evra / Buttner / Fabio.
Carrick.
Janujzi. Kagawa.
Rooney.
RVP.

We lack a good enough partner for carrick in midfield, evra is weak defensively, evans/jones & smalling all developing/ inconsistent. Wingers aren’t doing the business, janujzi & kagawa are much more fluent attacking midfielders rather than your out and out wingers, we need to be creative with our formations and tactics to get the best out of our squad strength and isolate the weaknesses. Fellani in the back 3 may work at home as well.

The first goal was Evans’s fault. Should have cut out the cross. He then reacted late after De gea made a very good save. With the set of central mid fielders we have, United will continue to struggle with the 4 4 2 that we play. Carrick and Felliani are not the quickest and Cleverly has no confidence on the ball therefore he releases it as soon as he gets. Our wingers are equally not equipt to handle the system hence the no of goals we have conceeded from crosses by either opposition wingers or wingbacks bcos our wingers refused or failed to track back. Like i said a while ago we are in a catch 22 situation. We either stick to the 442 and hope for the best or change to the more flexible 433 and face the wrath of Wayne Rooney who is refusing to play in any position other than an attack.

Well I think we have improved significantly since our draw with Southampton. The whole idea is to keep scoring if you can’t keep your opponents from scoring and with time the defence will pick up. It happened two seasons back under SAF.I saw the player rating on goal.com and felt it was totally wrong, how comes the Stoke players were given more credit. Going down twice in a game would take the steam out of any team but we fought back twice and went on to win it. Lets stay focused we will get there.

nice article…sometime back i made an observation that just as in the case of mourinho & mata,until moyes recognises kagawa’s talents,he would keep having attacking headaches.What i admired most about kagawa’s game is the way he keeps the game ticking especially in the middle of the pack despite being deployed on the left,he offers a fluidity that has been missing in previous games & thankfully,his confidence is coming back now.

would swap carrick (far to slow & predictable) for a pacy playmaker, alongside fellani, with kagawa, rooney & janujzi behind van persie. I think carricks our problem, slows the game down to much.
fabregas would have been perfect.

No kidding; actually, UTD already have two “good enough partners” for MC16 – it seems apparent that MrJones is a liability as a CB but he could be useful as the holding-player (like Gattuso) to release Carrick for the Pirlo “quarterback” role OR, much more obviously, TheWayneBoy could be slotted into TheScholesRole.

OR, maybe, MrJones and TheWayneBoy could be tried as a partnership – sacrilege ? OR a more athletic pairing ?

Whenever I make this suggestion – TheWayneBoy -> midfield in TheScholesRole – punters tell me that Rooney lacks “defensive discipline” which is, of course, true. SAF saw this as a problem – and TheWayneBoy paid the price but now, it seems, he is getting the last-laugh as the new manager has been compulsively brown-nosing him and catering to his sense of entitlement in playing TheWayneBoy “where-he-wants” rather than using him as an asset and deploying him in a role that would benefit the T-E-A-M.

When Rooney is playing as the so-called #10, he gums things up in the attacking zone, too, because he lacks “positional discipline” so he tends to go all RoyOfTheRovers and tries to do everything himself. Did’ya notice that when Chicharito came on and UTD effectively switched to an attacking 4-2-3-1 that the winning goal was scored ?

So far this season has been characterized by stop-start play and a huge amount of experimentation. Inadvertently – but, entirely not by accident – the new manager seems to have stumbled on what has been blindingly obvious: 4-4-2 won’t work and KagawaBunga needs to play. Those “discoveries” have a number of corollaries – touchline-hugging wingers is soooo yesterday; MC16 needs an aggressive partner; and TheWayneBoy’s sense of entitlement is actually counter-productive for the T-E-A-M.

As usual, your ridiculous schoolgirl nicknames are a source of frustration. I usually agree with your points tho (after crying inside at the nicknames). But this time, you suggest partnering Phil Jones with Rooney? Wtf?

I just can’t get past the ridiculous schoolgirl nicknames. The instant any of them are spotted I feel obliged to move to the next post. I have no idea whether I agree with anything he ever says because I have never successfully read an entire one of his posts.

@kentusoga, pls watch the replay of that first goal again. It was Evans job to take care of Peter Crough. He was actually infornt of him but misjudged the ball. It was also Evans hasty clearance that deflected off Peter Crough’s leg. Smaliing did not have the best of games but was not poor than Jones, Nani or Cleverly who should have prevented the cross.

Well i think football is a mental game. Jones and Evans weren’t mentaly strong enough 2 play Crouch as Vidic and Ferdinand wud. Peter was very much comfortable playin dem little boys. I think our coach needs 2 think how mentaly each of our players think d opposition players. Evans and Jones did a pretty good job in keepin Suarez than Ferdinand and vidic wud. I’m tellin u guys it’s all mental.

The main issue of the lack of goals and chances created by united is down to Moyes’ tactics of playing Rooney alongside RVP. This is helping Rooney but not the team, that need him to drop off and help out our useless midfield pair. Now Shinji is a play maker, he is a number 10, simple as. He should be played behind the front man, and is better than Rooney in that position because of his better ball control and vision. Many make a big deal out of Rooney’s long range passing, but for me one of the main reasons we haven’t played fluid attacking play is because of how long he takes to turn and hit the ball out wide. This makes us ridiculously predictable, especially with a two deep laying midfielders that are reluctant to come forward and take shots. United should learn to play through the MIDDLE, and with Shinji that’s the way forward!
Against Norwich i’d like to see.
Hernandez in front of Januzaj- Kagawa – Zaha. With Fellaini and Carrick in midfield. But that won’t happen because of Moyes’ reluctance to put Wazza on the bench. -_-

It’s often said, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but from what I’ve seen so far this season the midfield is broken. That means one of two things – one, MC16 is playing without a proper partner (i.e., a partner who can help him to express all parts of his game) or, two, that maybe last year was Carrick’s absolute peak and the team needs to move on.

MrJones/TheWayneBoy offer a completely different midfield combo – the next three matches are against Norwich, Sociedad, and Fulham so it seems to me that this is a good time to try something different. Something really, really different.

DayusRed @ 1:43: “Evans hasty clearance that deflected off Peter Crough’s leg. Smaliing did not have the best of games but was not poor than Jones, Nani or Cleverly who should have prevented the cross.”

Watch it again – after DaveySavey parries the shot from Crouchi-gol, the ball inadvertently hits DDG’s left foot and rebounds back to him and then pin-balls into the net.

Saying that does nothing to mitigate the atrocious defending from ALL of Jones and Nani and Cleverley AND Evans.

Fellaini was bought to help carrick in that DM position. Moyes should give him time to prove. why did u pay 27.5m if he was not good enough.
Secondly rafael rb smalling cb and jones cdm will always work better temporarily. smalling at rb is the worst choice.

Main reason of bad form has been defence, attackers are left to do too much.Sort out defence and will give confidence to attackers as well.

At least we got the three points. I have seen SAF in his time, go through a similar period the only difference is he always got the three points, at least we got the key and moved the bus in the stoke game that we couldn’t move in previous games. All am saying is we have to start from somewhere lets give these lads a chance